After sixteen years caring for the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of those in the leper colony, he eventually contracted and died of the disease, and is widely considered a "martyr of charity". He is the ninth person recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church to have lived, worked, and died in what is now the United States.

Following in the footsteps of his brother Auguste (Father Pamphile), Damien became a Picpus Brother on October 7, 1860. His superiors thought that he was not a good candidate for the priesthood because he lacked education. However, he was not considered unintelligent. Because he learned Latin well from his brother, his superiors decided to allow him to become a priest. During his ecclesiastical studies, he would pray every day before a picture of St. Francis Xavier, patron of missionaries, to be sent on a mission.[7][8] Three years later his prayer was answered when, because of illness, Auguste could not travel to Hawaii as a missionary, and Damien was allowed to take his place.

While Father Damien was serving in several parishes on the island of Oahu, the Kingdom of Hawai'i was facing a public health crisis. The Native Hawaiians became afflicted by diseases inadvertently introduced to their islands by foreign traders and sailors. Thousands died of influenza, syphilis and other ailments which had never before affected them. This included the plight of leprosy (Hansen's disease). At the time, leprosy was thought to be highly contagious (we now know that 95% of the general population has immunity) and was thought to be incurable. In 1865, fearful of its spread, the Hawaii Legislature passed and King Kamehameha V approved, the "Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy" which quarantined the lepers of the kingdom and moved them to settlement colonies known as Kalaupapa and Kalawao at the east end of the Kalaupapa peninsula on Molokaʻi. Kalawao County, where the village is situated, is divided from the rest of the island by a steep mountain ridge, and even today the only land access is by a mule track. Over 8000 people were sent to the Kalaupapa peninsula from 1866 to 1969. The Royal Board of Health provided the quarantined people with supplies and food but did not yet have the resources to offer proper healthcare. According to documents from the time, the Kingdom of Hawaii did not plan the settlement to be in disarray but did not provide sufficient resources and medical help.[10] They planned on the inhabiting sufferers to grow their own crops, but because of the nature of the environment and their sickness, it was nearly impossible. By 1868, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1911), "Drunken and lewd conduct prevailed. The easy-going, good-natured people seemed wholly changed."[11]

Father Damien, seen here with the Kalawao Girls Choir during the 1870s.

While Bishop Louis Desiré Maigret, vicar apostolic, believed that the lepers at the very least needed a priest to minister to their needs, he realized that this assignment could potentially be a death sentence, and thus did not want to send any one person "in the name of obedience". After prayerful thought, four priests volunteered. The bishop's plan was for the volunteers to take turns assisting the distressed. Father Damien was the first to volunteer and on 10 May 1873, Father Damien arrived at the secluded settlement at Kalaupapa, where Bishop Maigret presented him to the 816 lepers living there. Damien's first course of action was to build a church and establish the Parish of Saint Philomena. His role was not limited to being a priest: he dressed ulcers, built homes and beds, built coffins and dug graves.[12] Six months after his arrival at Kalawao he wrote his brother, Pamphile, in Europe:

…I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ.

Damien's arrival is seen by some as a turning point for the community. Under his leadership, basic laws were enforced, shacks became painted houses, working farms were organized and schools were erected. At his own request, and that of the lepers, Father Damien remained on Molokai.

Illness and death

In December 1884 while preparing to bathe, Damien put his foot into scalding water, causing his skin to blister. He felt nothing.[13] He had contracted leprosy. Despite this discovery, residents say that Damien worked vigorously to build as many homes as he could and planned for the continuation of the programs he created after he was gone.

Masanao Goto, a Japanese leprologist, came to Honolulu in 1885 and treated Father Damien. It was his theory that leprosy was caused by a diminution of the blood, and his treatment consisted of nourishing food, moderate exercise, frequent friction to the benumbed parts, special ointments and medical baths. The treatments did, indeed, relieve some of the symptoms and were very popular with the Hawaiian patients. Father Damien had faith in the treatments and stated that he wished to be treated by no one but Dr. Masanao Goto.[14][15][16][17]

Dr. Goto was one of his best friends[18] and Damien's last trip to Honolulu on July 10, 1886, was made to receive treatment from him.

In his last years Damien engaged in a flurry of activity. While continuing his charitable ministrations, he hastened to complete his many building projects, enlarge his orphanages, and organize his work. Help came from four strangers who came to Kalaupapa to help the ailing missionary: a priest, a soldier, a male nurse, and a nun.[citation needed]

The leprosy patients of Molokai gathered around Father Damien's grave in mourning.

Louis Lambert Conrardy was a Belgian priest. Mother Marianne Cope had been the head of the Franciscan-run St Joseph's hospital in Syracuse, New York. Joseph Dutton was an American Civil War soldier who left behind a marriage broken because of alcoholism. James Sinnett was a nurse from Chicago. Conrardy took up pastoral duties; Cope organized a working hospital; Dutton attended to the construction and maintenance of the community's buildings; Sinnett nursed Damien in the last phases of the disease. An arm in a sling, a foot in bandages and his leg dragging, Damien knew death was near. He was bedridden on March 23, 1889, and on March 30 he made a general confession and renewed his vows. On April 1, he received Holy Viaticum and on April 2, Extreme Unction.[citation needed]

Father Damien died of leprosy at 8:00 am on April 15, 1889, aged 49. The next day, after Mass by Father Moellers at St. Philomena’s, the whole settlement followed the funeral cortège to the cemetery where Damien was laid to rest under the same Pandanus tree where he first slept upon his arrival on Molokai.[citation needed]

In January 1936, at the request of the Belgian government, Damien's body was returned to his native land. It was brought back aboard the Belgian sailing ship Mercator and now rests in Leuven, an historic university city close to the village where Damien was born. After his beatification in June 1995, the remains of his right hand were returned to Hawaii, and re-interred in his original grave on Molokai.[19]

Order of Kalakaua

King David Kalakaua bestowed on Damien the honor Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Kalakaua. When Princess Lydia Liliuokalani visited the settlement to present the medal, she was reported as having been too distraught and heartbroken to read her speech. The princess shared her experience with the world and publicly acclaimed Damien's efforts. Consequently, Damien's name was spread across the United States and Europe. American Protestants raised large sums of money for the missionary. The Church of England sent food, medicine, clothing and supplies. It is believed that Damien never wore the medal given to him.

Criticism and commentary

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C. M. Hyde

Upon his death, a global discussion arose as to the mysteries of Damien's life and his work on the island of Molokai. Much criticism came out of the Congregational and Presbyterian churches in Hawaii. It has been argued that these church leaders took a stance against Damien largely because of their bias against Catholicism. The most well-known treatise against Damien was by a Honolulu Presbyterian, Reverend C. M. Hyde, in a letter dated 2 August 1889 to a fellow pastor, Reverend H. B. Gage; in it, Hyde referred to Father Damien as "a coarse, dirty man" whose leprosy should be attributed to his "carelessness".[20]

In 1889 Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and his family arrived in Hawaii for an extended stay. While there Stevenson, also a Presbyterian, drafted a famous open letter as a rebuttal in defense of Damien. The Catholic Encyclopedia judges that in this treatise "the memory of the Apostle of the Lepers is brilliantly vindicated".[5] Prior to writing his letter, dated February 25, 1890, Stevenson stayed in Molokai for eight days and seven nights, during which he kept a diary.[20] In the letter Stevenson answered Hyde's criticisms point by point.[20] He sought testimony from critical Protestants who knew the man, which he recorded in his diary. The treatise included some extracts, like the following which upbraided Rev. Hyde for his fault finding:

But, sir, when we have failed, and another has succeeded; when we have stood by, and another has stepped in; when we sit and grow bulky in our charming mansions, and a plain, uncouth peasant steps into the battle, under the eyes of God, and succours the afflicted, and consoles the dying, and is himself afflicted in his turn, and dies upon the field of honour - the battle cannot be retrieved as your unhappy irritation has suggested. It is a lost battle, and lost for ever. One thing remained to you in your defeat - some rags of common honour; and these you have made haste to cast away.[20][21]

In writing to Hyde, Stevenson proved prescient:

If that world at all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall be named a Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage.

Stevenson further chided Hyde for nit-picking Damien and failing to acknowledge his heroic virtue:

You are one of those who have an eye for faults and failures; that you take a pleasure to find and publish them; and that, having found them, you make haste to forget the overvailing virtues and the real success which had alone introduced them to your knowledge. It is a dangerous frame of mind.[21]

Stevenson then comments on his own journal entries:

…I have set down these private passages, as you perceive, without correction; thanks to you, the public has them in their bluntness. They are almost a list of the man's faults, for it is rather these that I was seeking: with his virtues, with the heroic profile of his life, I and the world were already sufficiently acquainted. I was besides a little suspicious of Catholic testimony; in no ill sense, but merely because Damien's admirers and disciples were the least likely to be critical. I know you will be more suspicious still; and the facts set down above were one and all collected from the lips of Protestants who had opposed the father in his life. Yet I am strangely deceived, or they build up the image of a man, with all his weakness, essentially heroic, and alive with rugged honesty, generosity, and mirth.[20]

The Catholic Encyclopedia further states that a correspondence in the "Pacific Commercial Advertiser", 20 June 1905, "completely removes from the character of Father Damien every vestige of suspicion, proving beyond a doubt that Dr. Hyde's insinuations rested merely on misunderstandings".[5]

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi offered his own defense of Father Damien's life and work. Gandhi claimed Damien to have been an inspiration for his social campaigns in India that led to the freedom of his people and secured aid for those that needed it. Gandhi was quoted in M.S. Mehendale’s 1971 account, Gandhi Looks at Leprosy, as saying,

The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism.

In the process of examining Damien's fitness for beatification and canonization, the Roman Curia reviewed documentation of published and unpublished criticisms against the missionary's life and work. Diaries and interviews were considered. In the end it was decided that Damien met the standards for beatification and canonization.

Two miracles have been attributed to Father Damien's posthumous intercession: On June 13, 1992, Pope John Paul II approved the cure of a nun in France in 1895 as a miracle attributed to Venerable Damien’s intercession. In that case, Sister Simplicia Hue began a novena to Father Damien as she lay dying of a lingering intestinal illness. It is stated that pain and symptoms of the illness disappeared overnight.

In the second case, Audrey Toguchi, a Hawaiian woman who suffered from cancer, was completely cured after having prayed at the grave of Father Damien on Molokai:[22] In 1997, Toguchi was diagnosed with liposarcoma, a cancer that arises in fat cells. She underwent surgery a year later. A tumor the size of a fist was removed from the side of her left thigh and buttock. Unfortunately, the cancer spread to her lungs. Her physician, Dr. Walter Chang, told her, 'Nobody has ever survived this cancer. It's going to take you.'[23] The Toguchi case was documented in the Hawaii Medical Journal of October 2000.[19]

In arts and media

Director David Miller made a short film of Father Damien's life in 1938 entitled The Great Heart, released by MGM.

The first full-length picture on Father Damien was Molokai (1959), a Spanish production directed by Luis Lucia with Javier Escrivá, Roberto Camardiel and Gerard Tichy playing the main roles.[27]

The one-man play Damien tells the story of Damien's life in the first person through a series of flashbacks.

Father Damien was portrayed in 1980 by Ken Howard in the television film Father Damien: Leper Priest.[28]

After the beatification of Blessed Damien, Belgian film producer Tharsi Vanhuysse was inspired to lead a project honoring the famous priest. Vanhuysse teamed with film producer Grietje Lammertyn of ERA Films and searched for a screenwriter, a director and lesser known actors. American John Briley, who had won an Academy Award for the screenplay of Gandhi, and had worked on Cry Freedom, was chosen to write Molokai: The Story of Father Damien. Paul Cox, who had completed an independent movie about the artist Vincent van Gogh, was selected to direct the project. Australian David Wenham was chosen to play the lead, and other actors in the film included Derek Jacobi, Kris Kristofferson, Sam Neill, Tom Wilkinson, Chris Haywood, and Peter O'Toole. The movie was released on March 17, 1999.[29]

Legacy

In both ecumenical religious and non-sectarian communities, Damien's ministry to lepers is being cited as an example of how society should minister to HIV/AIDS patients .

U.S. President Barack Obama, who grew up in Hawaii, expressed his deep admiration for St. Damien de Veuster and offered his prayers for all those celebrating the priest's extraordinary life and witness. He issued the statement on Oct. 9, two days before the pope canonized the Belgian priest and four others at the Vatican.[31]

From LoveToKnow 1911

FATHER DAMIEN, the name in religion of Joseph
De Veuster (1840-1889), Belgian missionary, was born at Tremeloo,
near Louvain, on the 3rd of
January 1840. He was educated for a business career, but in his
eighteenth year entered the Church, joining the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Congregation), and
taking Damien as his name in religion. In October 1863, while he
was still in minor orders, he went out as a missionary to the
Pacific Islands, taking the place of his brother, who had been
prevented by an illness. He reached Honolulu in March 1864, and was ordained priest in Whitsuntide of that
year. Struck with the sad condition of the lepers, whom it was the
practice of the Hawaian government to deport to the island of
Molokai, he conceived an earnest desire to mitigate their lot, and in
1873 volunteered to take spiritual charge of the settlement at
Molokai. Here he remained for the rest of his life, with occasional
visits to Honolulu, until he became stricken with leprosy in 1885. Besides
attending to the spiritual needs of the lepers, he managed, by the
labour of his own hands and by appeals to the Hawaian government,
to improve materially the water-supply, the dwellings, and the
victualling of the settlement. For five years he worked alone;
subsequently other resident priests from time to time assisted him.
He succumbed to leprosy on the 15th of April 1889. Some
ill-considered imputations upon Father Damien by a Presbyterian
minister produced a memorable tract by Robert Louis
Stevenson (An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr Hyde, 1890).

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[[File:|thumb|Father Damien, about 1888]]

Father Damien, also Saint Damien of Molokai, born as Joseph de Veuster in Belgium on January 3, 1840 and died on April 15, 1889, was a Roman CatholicPriest and missionary. He was known for helping people with leprosy in the colony of Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai in Hawaii. Father Damien came to Hawaii in 1864. During this time, many Native Hawaiians were dying from many of the diseases they caught from the white settlers. The King of Hawaii, made the people who had leprosy live in a colony away from other people. Father Damien went to help the sick people and gave them hope. Father Damien also died from leprosy, but what he did helped many people.

His is Patron Saint of the Diocese of Honolulu, as well as all of Hawaii, of people with leprosy, and of outcasts, as well as people suffering from HIV and AIDS as well. He also had a wife called Arobbea.